King Lear Insanity Analysis

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Insanity captures a main place in the play and connects with both disorder and unseen wisdom. Shakespeare’s play, King Lear, reveals the ruin of both the King and a family of greatness. Lear’s family and kingdom correspond as they are torn apart and problems appear instantly. When a person unqualified to govern is given power, complete disorder and confusion will be the result, and this is basically what occurs in the play. When Lear is in a state of insanity, he often speaks of random facts that do not pertain to his surroundings: “Behold yond simpring dame,whose face between her forks presages snow, that minces virtue and does shake then head to hear of pleasure’s name.”(4.6 135-138) Lear’s fury, however, only covers that he really is…show more content…
Goneril and Rega also observe that their father “hath ever but/ slenderly known himself.” (I, i, 282-283) It causes Lear to become a very unconfident person, which describes why he demands his daughters to satisfy his self-esteem by telling him how much they love him before getting any of his kingdom. His trouble on his identity stands out when he questions who can justify who he is, and then Fool answered: “Lear’s shadow.” (I, iv, 251) At this extent in the play, Lear is sane and is still the monarch of the kingdom. However, the Fool’s perceptive remark claims that Lear is no more than a shadow of his true self. Plato would say that he is stuck in the shadow world of the cave, unable to grasp the true forms. (Lindsay, pg.71)This self-imposed character distances Lear from his audience; being powerless as a human and is covered by his impulsive way of behaving and unfair choices. Bloom says that “before he goes mad, Lear’s consciousness is beyond ready understanding; his lack of self-knowledge, blended with his awesome authority, makes him unknowable by us.”[Bloom, p. 482 ] Without comprehending a persona, an audience is not able to sympathize with him, here we run into a difficult

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